Well, you can’t keep off a Bengali from fish for too long, can you? After the series on Breakfast with Egg, it time to go back to Fish. Chingri Bhaape is on the platter today.

Grinding of the spices to a paste just before preparing the dish is a typical of the Bengali recipes. We prefer the freshly prepared spices more than the preserved dry spice powder. Even while preparing Chingri Bhaape, I used a paste of mustard seeds (aka shorshe, sorshe, sarshe).

Chingri Bhape with steamed rice

Chingri Bhaape is an authentic Bangali recipe, and had been prepared in every household since ages. It is enjoyed best with warm white rice. The pungent taste of mustard paste makes the sarshe chingri bhaapa even more appealing. Hilsa is also used similarly to prepare ilish bhapa.

Preparation time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 5 – 8mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Tiger Prawns (Chingri Maach): ½ kg, cleaned and deveined

Mustard seed (Sarse): 5 tablespoons, ground with 1 tablespoon water to make a paste

Turmeric powder (Halud guro): ½ teaspoon

Mustard oil (Sarser tel): 3 tablespoon

Green chili (Kacha Lanka): 5 – 6

Salt to taste

Preparation:

In a heat proof bowl, that has a lid (better to use a steel tiffin box) put all the ingredients together and mix well

Close the lid and put it in a double boiler (bain marie) to cook for 5 minutes, check if the prawns have become tender, else cook for sometime more till the prawns are tender

Take it out and serve with warm rice

Hot Tips – Cut the back of the prawn with a knife and take out the dorsal vein completely. It is the main cause of food poisoning due to prawns.

Alternative cooking – Along with the above ingredients mentioned you can also put intwo tablespoons of freshly desiccated coconut. You can also cook it in a pressure cooker. Lace the steel box inside a pressure cooker and fill it with one-inch of water and wait till the first whistle.

Bhapa Chingri

Double boiler-If you don’t own a double boiler, here’s a workaround. Just place the box in a deep pan and fill the pan with water upto a little below the lid of the box.